Sustaining Adaptation

Greetings from the University of Technology Sydney, where Dr Joshua A. Lewis is talking on water management in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Human settlement on the river delta creates difficult land use issues. 

Research Whisperer on The economics of Australian universities

Jonathan O'Donnell, the Research Whisperer, has published a thoughtful item on The economics of Australian universities. Firstly he points out that Australian universities are ‘liberal arts’ institutions, and only a few are private. Income is mostly from student fees (domestic ones subsidised by government), with little from government research grants or private endowments. What not mentioned is that Australia law requires universities to undertake research in multiple fields: an institution which specializes in education, or research in one field, cannot be accredited as a university in Australia. 

Dr O'Donnell points to the "pernicious culture of over-work in universities". The solution to this, I suggest, is professional training. Academics who have been trained only in research are open to exploitation. Not given enough time to carry out teaching or administration, a culture which sees long unpaid hours as heroic can develop. Instead staff can be trained to use tools and techniques to get the job done in the time available.

I am not sure I agree with Dr O'Donnell's characterization of Australian universities as ‘liberal arts’. While there is a separate system of vocational institutions for trades training, Australian universities were established and continue to provide doctors, lawyers, engineers and other working professionals. Recent reforms by government might be seen as a way to reinforce this emphasis on professional education.

Of Australia's 42 universities, 38 are public (set up by governments), and 4 private. One of the private universities, Torrens, is for-profit, with the rest non-profit. Torrens, is an unusual institution and deserving of more study. 

Podcast on E-portfolios for Education

Recently I was delighted to be interviewed for a podcast by Kristina Hoeppner on the use of e-portfolios in Mahara's  'Create. Share. Engage' series.  We talked about how these are used in the ANU Techlauncher program, using techniques I learned as a student of Debra Hoven at Athabasca University. With this approach the student is guided through the development of the portfolio, including peer feedback, and as part of their coursework, rather than being left as something extracurricular to complete later. 

A slight variation on this, is to have the student prepare the portfolio in the form of an application for a real job which they would like on graduation. This makes sense as a capstone exercise, at the end of a program of study, as many students are then looking for jobs. This transforms the portfolio from something which might be of use to the student one day, to something of vital importance right now. At the moment I am overseeing the assessment of 400 student portfolios by a dozen tutors.

Stephen Dunkerley on Leadership

Stephen Dunkerley,
Matsue Leadership & Consulting

Greetings from the Australian Computer Society in Canberra where Stephen Dunkerley from Matsue Leadership & Consulting is talking on leadership. He started with an example of what language to use to convince a technical versus non-technical boss. The difficult example was recommending croudstrike just after the hack. This follows today's workshop for ANU students on how to get a job.

What do employers want?

Greetings from the final TechLauncher workshop at the Australian National University. This is a chance for students to not only listen to potential employers but also talk to them. Of course many computer students already have jobs, as they have in demand skills. There are some extra requirements for computer people, such as a Github account to show they can code. The workshop is held in "The Hive" which is an open plan area set up to look like a typical shared office environment. 

Bianca Sawyer,
Quantum Brilliance

Today we have Kevin Landale from Digital Atelier,  Bianca Sawyer from  Quantum Brilliance, and Jonathon Stapels from Overflow Solutions.

Kevin Landale,
Digital Atelier

These workshops are intended to help students, but a bonus for staff, such as myself, is to meet interesting people from interesting companies. The three company representatives (who are also company founders) talked about how they ended up where they are. 

Jonathon emphasised that applicants should be ready to talk about why they applied in everyday language. 

Jonathon Stapels,
Overflow Solutions

Bianca emphasised the importance of a cover letter focused on relevant qualifications, skills and experience, not just "sixteen pages of CV" and no "Spam CVs". Kevin said he uses behavioural pre-screening questions, unrelated to technical skills. Jonathon asked if job ads should give the specifics upfront, or talk about the learning opportunities in the job and he was surprised that students preferred the upfront version. The students then talked about what they studied and what they aspired to work on. One student said they wanted to work at a large company, at which point the employers discussed the pros and cons. 

Future of Teaching in Australian Universities

Last week, Professor Genevieve Bell, the Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University announced an ANU realignment: Renew ANU, to address budget pressures. Many Australian universities, and those in other countries, are experiencing similar pressures. This is to suggest some ways changes could be implemented to improve the education delivery by universities generally. This follows the broad approach I suggested in a submission to the Review of Higher Education. As with that submission, these suggestions are are my own, and may not represent the views of any organisation I am associated with.

Teach Students How to Learn, Work and Not Cheat

Universities could reduce costs and improve the quality of learning by teaching students study, teamwork, writing, assessment techniques (of the type which ANU offers in professional practice courses, such as Responsible Innovation and Leadership;  and Holistic Thinking and Communication. This could be enhanced to identify students with specific learning difficulties. Rather than wasting staff resources investigating cheating, student can learn techniques to avoid charges of plagiarism, which will also be useful in their career to protect their own intellectual property. 

New Courses on Technology and Society

ANU plans for consolidation are more modest that those in South Australia, where two universities are merging: University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia (I dropped in to visit them a few weeks ago).  The ANU has proposed to include the Fenner School of Environment and Society, the Mathematical Sciences Institute, and Centre for Public Awareness of Science in the ANU College of Engineering, Computing and Cybernetics to create the ANU College of Systems and Society. Such mergers creates the opportunity for new cross fertilization between academics. Universities, I suggest, could and should be offering  courses on the technical and social aspects of the major challenges Australia and the world are facing, including global warming.

Courses on technology and society can be offered by universities as part of conventional degree programs, as well as for microcredentials, and in service professional development. The University of New South Wales is building a new Canberra campus with an emphasis on courses for Australian Public Service (APS) staff, including using stackable microcredentials. This could be done using the format of courses such as COMP7310 ICT Sustainability. The Australian Computer Society commissioned me to design this course for in service professional development, to be delivered online. I then modified the course for ANU computer science graduate students, then again with an on campus option (Worthington, 2012). The same approach was applied for delivery of part of the ANU Techlauncher program (Worthington, 2019). This blended/online option was fortuitously added a few months before COVID-19 struck, allowing a switch from campus based to online delivery, with no changes in content or assessment (and a switch back to on campus).

Such courses can set context, and pose questions for students to address, rather than provide large quantities of technical content, which require constant revision. These courses can also use small regular assessment items to keep students working between major project tasks. 

 Role in Teacher Tech Education

The ANU Centre for Public Awareness of Science is respected for its education of science communicators. Such centers at universities could help with the teaching of science and the use of technology in teaching and training. This could avoid duplicating programs offered in training in the vocational sector and university school teaching programs, addressing advanced requirements. This could be in cooperation with the centers most universities have for learning & teaching.

An example of the incorporation of an existing center in teaching is the way the ANU Careers & Employability unit teaches students about careers. Rather than wait for students to go to the unit for extra curricula advice, several schools of the ANU welcome the careers staff into the classroom to teach the students. Academic staff then set assessment to ensure students focus on the topic. This could be done with topic of teaching, which is part of many disciplines. This can be aligned with professional requirements for areas such as engineering and computing, using standards such as the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA).

New Teaching Methods

Immersive Reality

Immersive Reality (XR): that is Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and other forms of technology based simulation, offer ways to enhance the teaching of technical disciplines. Until recently this was prohibitively expensive for most teaching, due to the need for specialised devices, and teaching spaces. However, IR can now use student provided equipment (smart phones and low cost glasses), in standard teaching rooms (Cochrane, et Al., 2022).

The ANU School of Computing's Escape Room provides an example of low cost IR, being essentially a room dressed up with colored lights, but using very advanced pedagogy (Pereira Nunes, et.Al, 2024). The Escape Room is colocated with "The Hive" a simulation of a computer project workspace for Techlauncher Project students (Browne, et Al, 2020). 

Hackerthons and simulations could also be used for education in addressing problems facing society. As an example the Australian Crisis Simulation Summit rprovides a format for a learning activity which just needs assessment added. 

Other Support for Experiential Learning

The ANU provides experiential learning in computing with the award winning Techlauncher program. Other ANU schools and other institutions have similar group projects as a capstone activity. While valuable for the student, and an essential part of professional accreditation, such programs are difficult to deliver and can be expensive without the right tools and pedagogy. The lessons learned from the Techlauncher program could be passed to others. As an example, the use of a reflective e-portfolio in the form of a job application (Worthington, 2019). 

References

Browne, C., Boast, L. J., Blackmore, K., & Flint, S. (2020). Capstone design projects, the project value map and the many eyes process: balancing process and product to deliver measurable value to student and client. The International journal of engineering education, 36(2), 586-599. https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=7342405

Cochrane, T. D., Narayan, V., Aiello, S., Alizadeh, M., Birt, J., Bone, E., ... & Worthington, T. (2022). Analysing mobile learning designs: A framework for transforming learning post-COVID. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 38(4), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.7997

Pereira Nunes, B., Kaur, G., Chan, A., Sharpe, S., & Soto Ruidias, R. R. (2024). Exploring Educational Escape Room as an Assessment Tool for Computer Science Courses. In Proceedings of the 2024 on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 2 (pp. 803-803). https://doi.org/10.1145/3649405.3659494

Worthington, T. (2012, July). A Green computing professional education course online: Designing and delivering a course in ICT sustainability using Internet and eBooks. In 2012 7th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE) (pp. 263-266). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCSE.2012.6295070

Worthington, T. (2019, December). Blend and flip for teaching communication skills to final year international computer science students. In 2019 IEEE International Conference on Engineering, Technology and Education (TALE) (pp. 1-5). IEEE. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9225921/

Australian French Research Collaboration

 

Greetings from the Australian-French Association for Research and Innovation (AFRAN) meeting at the Canberra Innovation Network. Dr Charles Gretton and,l Dr Nian (Jenny) Jiang are talking about how research can have real world impact. Charles talked about both AI research improving industrial processes and Jenny development of new instruments. Charles pointed out 5% of ANU Techlauncher students go on to found companies. Jenny talked about joining Cambridge University just as COVID-19 lockdowns started.

Charles said "There are a lot of batshit stupid ideas being funded, so get your better idea out there!".

The 2024 AFRAN Forum on the  role of research and innovation in industry, policy and public dialogue is at ANU 4 to 6 Nov 2024, and is free.

Better Fitting Body Armour for Australian Soldiers

Greetings from the University of Canberra where Dr Celeste Coltman just pitched on better fitting armour for soldiers. This was at First Wednesday.

Energy, Digital and People Skills for Australia

Australia 4.0 - Energy & Digital Skills Roundtable

Greetings from the Engineers Australia HQ, where I am taking part in the Australia 4.0 - Energy & Digital Skills Roundtable. This is organised by the Pearcey Foundation to work out what skills will be needed for the transition to zero emissions economy, and how to get them. This is recognising that even if you have the technology, you need people who can build and repair it. This is not just people bolting stuff together, but also those programming the systems to run it, thus my interest*.

After a welcome from the acting EA President, we had some statistics of the supply of engineers. Highlights were that Australia is dependent on importing trained engineers and it will take 70 years at the current rate to achieve parity between male and females. This is much the same as the computing profession. There is an obvious way to increase the number of domestically trained engineers: attract more females, but that will require changes to training and jobs. That could also solve another problem with technical training: the need to teach people skills. At the ANU I help teach computer students to work in teams in the Techlauncher program.

It took 30 minutes before AI got a mention in the presentations. This was a relief as for the last few years AI seemed to be in the title of every talk. ;-) The approach taken here was AI enhancing work.

Some of the good news was that engineering skills are transferable. This suggests that engineers could move to renewable industry from others, such as mining. The bad news is the reverse is also the case, with the mining industry in particular having a demand for staff and money to attract them. Also there are about 40% of qualified engineers working outside an engineering role who might be attracted back. Engineers Australia produced a Clean energy workforce capacity study submission (May 2023).

The roundtable switched to comedy with discussion of smart toasters talking to smart fridges. This had a serious side as a way to manage energy use and also as a potential privacy risk. 

A topic I want to raise with the roundtable is the government's recent restrictions on international students: will this reduce the supply of engineers and computer professionals? What can we do to increase the domestic supply? Microcredentials were mentioned and I wonder if they will help people already qualified in engineering or computing to transition to renewable energy. Shortly after I typed the last few sentences the chair invited me to speak, so I said it.

The next speaker proposed an updated energy risk assessment. An example given was the vulnerability Australia has importing the components for building renewable energy systems. Also it was claimed that in a few years there will be no one in government qualified to conduct such a study.

* Way back in 2008, the Australian Computer Society commissioned me to write a course on Green Computing. The ACS and ANU first ran the course in 2009 and it is still offered by Athabasca University in Canada, 15 years later. The course is still on the books at ANU, perhaps it is time to revive it.

Students to Catalog Art Works?

Work by Graham Radcliffe

Yesterday I visited the Phoenix Sculpture Garden near Brisbane. This is dedicated to the work of Graham Radcliffe, including unfinished pieces in his workshop. It reminds me of Barbara Hepworth's studio at St Ives. You have the sense the sculptor just downed tools for a cup of tea. 

I suggested to Margit Rradcliffe inviting teams of university students to scan and catalog the work. This could involve engineering, computing and art students. Anyone interested can contact her at the gallery. 

How did pagers explode?

Part of being associated with a university is making yourself available for expert commentary. Yesterday I had a request from SBS News to talk about exploding pagers. I could have said "No, I am on holidays". But instead I propped my phone up on a suitcase and was interviewed for a segment six minutes into the national nightly news: "How did Hezbollah's pagers explode in Lebanon and Syria?".

As it happens, when working at HQ Australian Defence Force in the eatly 1990s, I tested the use of a pager, while travelling around defence bases in northern Australia by RAAF aircraft. The units were able to receive messages in remote areas and while in flight, making them useful.

One feature which I noticed was that it was possible to send a test message to a pager which was apparently switched off. The only way to prevent this was to remove the battery from the unit. I suggested it is likely that something like this was used for activating a few grams of explosive hidden in the pagers. Also I warned that some of the pagers could have not been delivered to their intended targets and pose a danger to the community, worldwide. 

ANU Computer Interns Available

Greetings from Canberra Innovation Network's First Wednesday pitch night. I am here to let people know the Australian National University has computer interns needing placements to hone their skills. 

Generative AI For Higher Education

Greetings from the Australian National University where I am taking part in a Generative AI Workshop Day. Professor Adam Bridgeman and Professor Danny Liu from the University of Sydney are taking ANU staff through how to Microsoft Copilot to create rubrics, multiple and choice questions. The also demonstrated using other AI to create a tutor chatbot to help e with the topic and even give feedback on their writing. One point emphasised is that experts have to test what the AI is producing. In February I attended a " Team-Based Learning Collaborative Asia Pacific Community Symposium" at USyd and was impressed with what they are doing. The state of the art has advanced since 2018, when I wrote a tutor bot to handled applications for assignment extensions: it always said "no". ;-)

As an exercise I had Copilot write a summary the ANU VC's PhD thesis, in HTML:

Telling Stories Out of School: Remembering the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 1879-1918

Overview: "Telling Stories Out of School" examines the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, the first government-funded, co-educational, secular, non-reservation Indian School in the United States.

Key Points:

• Historical Context: Carlisle operated from 1879 to 1918 and influenced other non-reservation boarding schools.
• Goals: The study explores state policies, student experiences, and post-school impact.
• Student Population: Approximately 8,500 students from 75 Native American Nations attended Carlisle, learning academic and vocational skills while navigating their identities.

Can Canadian Graduate Education Be Redesigned Around Jobs?

In "Arts graduate education in Canada should be redesigned around students’ and society’s needs" Malloy, Young, and Berdahl (2024) suggest focusing on public good. The authors argue not mimicking STEM degrees for arts and social science. As it happens a decade ago I enrolled in a Canadian social science graduate program which does what the authors call for.

The authors make the point that course-based professional masters degrees tend to be focused on careers, research degrees are less so. This is no accident, but by design. Research degrees are for training researchers, professional degrees for professionals. Australia has formalized this at the doctorate level with separate definitions for research and professional doctorates. The professional doctorates have a smaller research component and are more focused on industry needs. However, this requires finding a needed bundle of skills, in specific jobs, which students want, which are currley not met by other forms of education, and which university academics are capable of providing. Teaching professional skills requires teachers with professional experience, not just researchers. It also requires skills in educational design.

Malloy, Young, and Berdah criticise arts graduate student training for being linked to academic career skills, when their are few such jobs for them. However, do current academics have the skills and knowledge to train students for other careers? I teach computer project students using my decades of experience in the computer industry. However, when it comes to teaching them how to apply for a job, I hand the task to staff in the university's careers unit, who are specialists in the field (I then just manage the classes and assessment). 

If university arts academics are to redesign courses to fit new needs, they will need skills in program design. They will also need to get the real world requirements from somewhere. As a computer professional who started teaching at university I had had to learn how to teach. I then learned about how to design courses. Also tough my professional body I helped define the skills which professionals in my field need. The skills definitions are used by universities to design courses and by government to decide who is professionally qualified. This requires careful application of design and testing skills. While academics in STEM disciplines, as well as medicine, law and business are used to having to comply with these forms of external guideice, it may be challenging for arts academics.

It might be asked why, as an Australia, I am writing about Canadian graduate education. As it happens I have a Canadian graduate degree. I had intended to follow the research path, but ended up a coursework student. My degree is a Master of Education in Open, Digital and Distance Education. This is far from the author's view of Canadian degrees being unrelated to careers or society's needs. In my degree I studied how to teach students, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds who otherwise miss out on education. I also looked at how to teach students if an emergency kept them from campus. During the COVID-19 pandemic, these skills became vital. Not only was I able to teach my own students, but train tutors and advise colleagues on how to rapidly switch to online learning. 

VitiVolatics: Vineyards with Photovoltaics

Greetings from the University of Adelaide where I am attending the Sustainability spotlight series (seminar 1) on VitiVolatics, with Professors Cassandra Collins, Armando Corsi and their students. Professor Collins defined VitiVolatics as being about optimising solar power generation and wine quality. In retrospect, the idea seems obvious, and deceptively simple: use solar panels to shade grape vines, providing power while improving growing conditions.

AgrVolatics (Agriculture under PhotoVoltaics) have considerable potential in Australia. As well as the practical aspects, this could be politically useful, by allowing large solar farms which do not stop agricultural production and provide additional income for farmers. This approach is applicable to berries, fruit and leafy vegetables, as well as smaller livestock, but not grains.

An amusing aside in the seminar was that most of the carbon footprint of winemaking comes from packaging, so drink casks wine! ;-) More seriously, the temperature in winemaking regions is increasing, which PV could address. 

It would be interesting to see if the same pre-wired folded panels to be used on the large scale project to export power to Singapore could be used for agriculture. It would also be interesting to see if AgrVolatics are viable in Northern Australia, at a large scale. Interestingly the students have designed an approach to attaching lightweight flexible solar panels to a framework using common off the shelf hardware (steel from local hardware store and electronics from the local hobbyist store). This allows manual installation, compared to the machinery required for heavier rigid panels and the steel mountings used by the solar industry. 

One issue is the aesthetics of large expanses of solar panels across traditional wine growing regions. This seems a little odd, as shade cloth and plastic sheets are already used on a large scale for protecting grapes. However, renewable energy can be triggering for some, so requires research.

Interestingly University of Adelaide is not just researching the engineering and viticulture of PV panels over grape vines, but how to market this to wine drinkers. The idea is to sell the resulting wine using a positive environmental message about carbon emissions. 

At question time I asked if green coloured solar panels would be more acceptable. This is possible using coloured film over conventional blue cells, without a large loss in efficiency. It would make the panels much less visible.

OK RDY Wins iAward for Diversity

Timothy McKay from OK  RDY and
Tom Worthington ANU at AIIA iAwards

Greetings from the AIIA awards. Way back in 2017, I had the pleasure of mentoring a team working on the OK RDY mentoring platform in the Innovation ACT competition. Timothy McKay accepted the iAward for diversity tonight. Good to see OK RDY going from strength to strength.

AIIA iAwards

Dr Catherine Galvin & Tom Worthington 
at iAwards in Adelaide. 

Greetings from Adelaide where I am attending the AIIA iAwards. Dr Catherine Galvin has a team competing for an award and I am mentoring a team of ANU Techlauncher students competing in another category. 

The Deputy Premier of DA is giving the keynote. In this she mentioned the merger of Uni SA and Adelaide Uni. It will be interesting to see what effect the Australian Government's decision to limit international enrollments will have on the merged entity.

Building the Australia Tech Industry in Adelaide

Tom Worthington with the student team:
Ethan Teber-Rossi & Steven Nguyen at Deloitte

Greetings from Deloitte in Adelaide, where a team of ANU Techlauncher students is competing in the national AIIA iAwards. It was only yesterday the students were told that I am not doing the presentation, they are. That required changing the outlook of the presentation to a student perspective, which made it much better. It is is difficult as the students have to talk about their own project, as well as the university's way to deliver experiential education. Ethan Teber-Rossi and Steven Nguyen, from the "FireApp" team in Techlauncher are presenting.

So far nothing strange in Adelaide

Greetings from the State Library of South Australia cafe. In Adelaide for the AIIA iAwards. So far nothing odd has happened. Last time I bumped into the now Vice Chancellor of ANU writing a report for the SA government. On a previous visit I bumped into another professor writing a report on tech development for government. 

On the last occasion I was giving a talk on open source software for submarines and before that inspecting a defence company at a tech park. This time I am mentoring students competing in the iAwards.

Untangling Australian Higher Education from Migration Policy

Professor Andrew Norton (Australian National University) makes a well reasoned case for Australia not needing caps on international student numbers. He suggests recent changes to regulations will be sufficient to correct problems with the system. However, I suggest some of these problems are political, rather than administrative, but the government's proposed close regulation will make things harder for them, rather than easier. Universities should be ready with alternative policy proposals, for when this government, or a future one, realises they need another solution.

As Professor Norton points out the pent up demand for international education caused by COVID coincided with a a shortage of housing in Australia. But as other commentators have pointed out, these are not necessarily connected: students have different housing needs. Reducing the number of students competing for inner-city share houses and on-campus dorms, will not provide suburban houses for Australian families.

The Australia government proposes to set quotas for the number of students in each course at each university. A political calculation has been made to set the quotas higher at regional universities in sensitive electorates, and lower for capital city universities. The elite capital city universities are perceived to be well off and it is assumed will not elicit sympathy from voters. It is likely a flawed calculation.

Apart from the politics, Australia needs universities to provide a trained workforce to service the community and support the economy. International student revenue has been used to supplement decreasing funding from government. 

In my submission to the accord panel, I suggested Australian universities need to design an education product which appeals to both domestic and international students. These should not be reliant on a work visa to be attractive to international students. They should not be dependent on students, international or domestic, being at a particular location, country, or on a campus. The universities should end the arms race of offering more and more advanced degree programs to each student. Vocational and university offerings should be combined to meet current real world work needs. Education should be offered online wherever the student is, in small nested packages, which can build into degrees.

Designing Tomorrow: Strategic Design Tactics to Change Your Practice, Organisation, and Planetary Impact

Martin Tomitsch and Steve Baty at ANU. 
Photo by Tom Worthington CC-BY 2014.

Greetings from the Australian National University, where Martin Tomitsch and Steve Baty are talking about their book "Designing Tomorrow: Strategic Design Tactics to Change Your Practice, Organisation, and Planetary Impact". The event is hosted by ACM SIGCHI Chapter for Canberra and the ANU School of Cybernetics. The approach advocated in the book will be very familiar to engineers, computer professionals and other design based disciplines, but may also be of interest to others.

Google on Designing Tech Policy for AI

Greetings from the"Special Conversation with Kent Walker: President of Global Affairs @ Google" hosted by the Australian National University. Dr Walker cautioned against over regulation of AI, suggesting this be by application depending on the output, not input. Regulation of technology is not easy. The Australian Computer Society elected me a fellow for my work on public policy for Internet regulation (or it may have been for bravery fronting up to explain the Internet to the Senate).

Dr Walker gave the example of requiring someone to walk with a red flag in front of motor vehicle as an example of over-regulation. However, this was at a time when roads were not designed for motor vehicles, there were no safety standards for cars, or driving tests. It was not acceptable then, and I suggest not acceptable now to see how many people the technology mames and kills, before considering regulation. That may sound an exxeration, but the Australian government is acquiring up to 10,000 smart sea mines, each capable of sinking a ship, along with funding the development of robot aircraft and submarines. 

Dr Walker argued for shorter qualifications to keep up with needs and provide more flexibility. 

Presumably Dr Walker will be having a similar discussion with lawmakers in Parliament House, just up the road. It is useful to know the thinking of one of the companies involved in developing AI. Google was caught out by the popularity of Chat GPT and it is good to see them now taking the issues seriously.

Trying Mastodon in Plance of Twitter/X: So far So Good

Recently I have noticed more annoying messages on X/Twitter than interesting content. Not the extreme stuff reported in the media, just annoying. So I am trying Mastodon. As I understand it, Mastodon is a free open source self hosted social network, similar in spirit to the old Usenet. So far I am not seeing much content, which is good. My first post drew criticism, but it was mild, and from an acquaintance, which is a kind of welcome to the system. I have tried looking for some education, defence and computing conference, but I am not exactly sure where to look. But it took me week to work out hot to use Usenet (a long, long time ago). Every now and then I get a hankering to look at Twitter, but so far am resisting the temptation.

AUKUS Beyond Nuclear Submarines

Last week I attended "AUKUS: Assumptions & Implications": a two day conference organized by the Academy of the Social Sciences. AUKUS is a partnership between Australia, USA & UK, announced in 2021. Originally it aimed to provide Australia with conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarines, but has more recently broadened with other defence cooperation. The conference was held at the Australian Centre on China in the World (CIW), which was apposite, given some of the discussion was about China's reaction to AUKUS. his conference showed the value of academics and researchers in giving an independent perspective on contentious issues, and offering a platform for discussion of important public issues. 

Coffee before formalities was a meeting of the old guard. I was asked by someone if I recalled them from Defence Capabilities Branch in 1997, when I worked on technology policy at the Department of Defence. I can't even remember the branch. ;-)

Normally I would include a photo of the event, but this was a strictly :"no photographs" conference. This was odd as there were numerous journalists in attendance and the event has been reported in the media.

Some of the high profile speakers

Professor Ross Garnaut

Professor Ross Garnaut's keynote took us back to the power politics and economics of WWI. He traced Australia's transition from the UK to the USA as our major ally. He talked about the "golden age" of the 1980s, with Australian economic prosperity based on exports. He warned that AUKUS was returning to the old and familiar, rather than the difficulty of a relationship with Asia. Also he warned "We are becoming a cranky and divided community". Professor Garnaut argued Australia should be exporting "immense" amount of energy and green refined metals, using equipment supplied by China, with US protectionist policies assisting this.

Professor Garnaut described AUKUS as an economic opportunity for UK submarine exports and questions how long US commitment to the Pacific west of Hawaii will last. He then told an anecdote about discussions with the Bush administration on Australia standing by US to defend Taiwan (and saying Australia would not).

Getting back to economic,s Professor Garnaut showed a chart of the rapid Chinese exports from 2000, and it becoming a larger trading partner for most countries than USA by 2011. He suggested going to war without a consensus was undemocratic. He suggested India and Indonesia could balance China's dominance, but without drawing them into a close military alliance.

Professor Garnaut suggested China military occupation of Taiwan would be prohibitively expensive. In closing Professor Garnaut argued Australia could remain a US ally without joining a war over Taiwan. He suggested joining such a war would result in isolation of Australia from Asia.

An interesting question, from a banker, was about Australia deepening ties with Korea and Japan. Professor Garnaut said he would leave it to other speakers, but suggested military purchases were not the best way for Australia to secure relations with Korea and Japan. That may be the case, but I suggest the combination of their expertise with manufacturing, plus Australia's AI skills, could produce weapons systems to match the best in the world.

Professor Gareth Evans

Professor Gareth Evans view on AUKUS is detailed in an article published concurrent with the conference: "AUKUS is terrible for Australian national interests – but we’re probably stuck with it". In his address, Professor Evans argued that missiles and drones would be more important to defence than submarines, but Australia was already committed to AUKUS by both major political parties. I agree with the first part of this, but not the second. 

Ghost Shark prototype built in Sydney.
Photo from DoD 2024

Australian Government funded development of the Ghost Shark autonomous extra-large unmanned undersea vehicle (XLUUV) is reported to be proceeding well and ahead of US government sponsored technology. It would be possible to redefine the AUKUS agreement by placing more emphasis on Pillar 2, with Australia's contribution being autonomous technology, rather than crewed submarines. 

Rear Admiral Peter Clarke (RAN Retired)

In the introduction to his presentation, it was pointed out that Rear Admiral Peter Clarke was the only one in the room who had commanded a nuclear submarine (before joining the RAN). The former Admiral gave an expert assessment of the advantages of nuclear submarines over conventionally powered ones. However, other speakers had pointed out there were alternatives to both. 

UUVs will be superior to crewed submarines for their primary mission of  surveillance. In addition an Australian fleet of 500 XLUUVs would be able to place the 10,000 smart sea mines Australia is acquiring, around harbour entrances and sea lanes, denying an enemy the ability to operate their warships (without hindering civilian trade). UUVs would be less useful for maritime strike, and not at all suited to land strike, but the strategic value of those missions is questionable. Conventional weapons would have limited effect, and if they did have a significant effect this might prompt a nuclear response.

Australian Universities Campaign Against International Student Cutbacks Takes to the Airwaves

Universities Australia has ramped up its "Universites Matter" campaign, with  advertisements on broadcast TV.  The advertisement depicts research helping Australian health and industry. There is no direct mention of recent government moves to restrict the numbers of international students, but clearly the campaign is being run in response. 

Half jokingly I had previously suggested dressing students in high visibility vests and medical scrubs and show them building houses and caring for the aged, which is essentially what this campaign is does. Universities have been relatively restrained in response to government restrictions on international students. Campaigns by industries such as mining, when threatened by government action, have been far more direct. Government members and ministers will have made a careful political calculation that votes from being seen to cracking down on foreigners will play well with the electorate. Universites, I suggest, need to remind voters that it is themselves, their friends and families, who will suffer as a result, from loss of jobs, income and services.

Skills for Career

Joe Schmetzer,
Head of Software Engineering,
Applied AI at Penten

Greetings from the Australian National University where Joe Schmetzer , Head of Software Engineering, Applied AI at Penten is talking to ANU Techlauncher students about "Skills for a Tech Career". Beforehand I introduced a small assessed task for students, which is to find a job or other opportunity and explain why they have the skills and knowledge for it.

This morning I was interviewed by Kristina Hoeppner for her Portfolio Podcast series "Create. Share. Engage". I explained that for Techlauncher we have disguised the capstone e-portfolio reflection exercise as a job application. Joe is now taking students through what he likes to see from applicants. He has students do a short coding exercise, which is not unusual for a technical job but a "cultural interview" is. After the code test the Penten Head of Operations asks the applicant why they are there and they have an idea of what the company they are applying to. This is something STEM graduates tend to have difficulty with. It helps if students have done some sort of practical project. Joe then talked about the Trident Career Model. 

Later the ANU Careers and Employability staff took students through a series of careers exercises. The RIASEC categorised me as being Realistic, Artistic & Investigative, suggesting I could be a Landscape Architect. As it happens I did an introductory design course for architects and industrial designers. 

Stackable Micro Credentials from UNSW Canberra

  Professor Blackburn, UNSW.
Photo by Tom Worthington CC-BY 2024.

Greetings from First Wednesday Connect at Canberra Innovation Network. The pitch from Professor Deborah Blackman hooked me with on Stackable Micro Credentials UNSW Canberra. UNSW offers very short training modules (called microcredentials). These can be used for credit towards a larger qualification, usually a graduate certificate. The idea is to supplement, rather than replace, conventional courses and qualifications, to top-up skills and knowledge quickly where needed. 

UNSW Canberra were hosting the event and this was a good opportunity to learn more about the business model behind their new Canberra CBD campus. What I couldn't understand was where UNSW was going to get all the students to fill the new classrooms: where they expecting to attract undergraduates to canberra from around Australia, or the world? The answer which became clear from a series of pitches from UNSW staff was that the new campus would focus on postgraduates, work shills and the needs of the Australian Public Service, the defence community and industry.

Australian industry, the public service and defence needs workers with new skills. Outbidding other employers for experienced staff is expensive, as is headhunting abroad. The better way to acquire stared staff is to take the staff you have and train them further. In 19 years with the Australian Public Service I was regularly sent on training courses run by top people in their field*. One problem in that system was the training was not formally recognised. Systems of nested microcredentials allow for recognition. I suggest this is the core of the future of Australian higher education. Unfortunately Australian universities are well behind their international competition, especially Singapore, with this.

ps: * Sometimes the training could be excessive. I was sent on two project management courses back to back. After a few days of intensive training I was ready to knot the sheets together and escape from my monk-like room in the Melbourne Business schools, but the windows did not open. ;-)

Water Politics Young People and Rap

Greetings from "Intersectional voices in water politics: an exploration of the Menindee fish death disaster, and what public discourse and research can do better" by Dr Hannah Feldman. They identified the difference between older and younger people's approach to issues such as climate change and water politics. 

It occured to me that part of this is the mode of communication. On a trip to Menindee, at the Yaama Ngunna Baaka Corroboree Festival. 2019, I saw a jaw dropping performance by Dobby. He was later able to bridge the gap from performance in the outback to a national art gallery, Warrangu River Story.

Killing Bushfires with Drones

Associate Professor Roslyn Prinsley,
Head of Disaster Solutions,
ANU Institute for Climate,
Energy & Disaster Solutions

Associate Professor Roslyn Prinsley, Head of Disaster Solutions, ANU Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions is taking about ways to prevent natural disasters. One of these being worked on at the Australian National University is to detect lightening strikes, resulting bushfires and quickly targeting them from the air with drones. This is a very challenging application as bushfires can start in large areas of Australia, and there can be thousands of lightning strikes which can potentially start a fire. Such a system can't simply water bomb every potential fire. This was at the ANU Disaster Solutions Update 2024.  The event is available live online.

The approach Professor Prinsley outlined was for small spot fires to be detected by UAVs and targeted with water dropped by steered parachutes. Such as system would be similar to those needed to defend Australia. Such a system has to scan large areas, decide what is a potential target deploy assets & assess results. Recent conflicts have shown it is no longer feasible to do this with crewed systems & human decision making. There are too many potential targets to be serviced & too much happening too quickly.

Minister says we are still putting homes in harm's way

The Hon Stephen Jones MP,
Assistant Treasurer and Minister
for Financial Services

Greetings from the ANU Disaster Solutions Update 2024, with Stephen Jones, Minister for Financial Services giving the keynote at the Australian National University's Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions. He pointed out that in the past government have not done a good job, for example building low cost housing in areas which flood: "Its the fact that we are still putting homes in harm's way" , "We have to stop doing dumb things." He then went on to point out the importance of insurance, not only in paying out, but also influencing what gets built where. He went on to discuss what measures government needs to take to reduce the risk, encouraging people to put in place mitigation measures, as well as action by government.

The event is available live online. 

Research to Product

Greetings from the  InnovationACT: Research to Impact Panel at the Canberra Innovation Network. Damith Herath nominated a coin operated robot he built at school as his first innovation. Inger Newburn described her Thesis blog as a career saving strategy. Elizabeth McGrath nominated her space research project.

I asked the panel if enterperur skills should be in the curriculum. The panel's consensus was this would work for undergraduates but not research students.

This event was part of Innovation ACT a competition for tertiary students.

ANU Multimedia Studios

Greetings from the new ANU Multimedia Studios at the Australian National University. These are a collaborative effort between the Centre for Learning and Teaching (CLT), and the College of Arts & Social Science. With Canvas replacing Moodle as the ANU learning management system there is the opportunity to add more Multimedia.

Future History of AI

Greetings from "AI and Other Scientific Fables" at the ANU School of Cybernetics. We have tech storytellers exploring how AI is changing our lives. Note that the term "Cybernetics." is used in a more social was in this school, than the way the computing profession understands it, as being about technical control systems. The first reading was by Kathryn Gledhill-Tucker of "Campfire". The event ends with a screening of Moonrise and Requiem by Ceridwen Dovey and Rowena Potts (Dovey is the author of "Life After Truth"). The event is in person and live online.

I wrote some future history for an ACT Government project "Canberra 2020: World Information Capital" (Informatics Magazine, September 1993). In this I had Canberra as the capital of the world, with a massive computer complex providing world government from under the Bruce Technology Park. The original version had an automated missile defence system nicknamed "Skywalker" shooting down an off course light aircraft. In a case of life imitating art, decades later I was tutoring a team of students helping test the radar for Australia's anti-missile system (there is a test radar for this in Canberra). 

Magic of Cybersecurity

Greetings from a panel on Cyber Security: Exposing the  THE magic involved in product evaluation, at the Australian Computer Society in Canberra. This is timely with Friday's Microsoft Windows/CloudStrike outage. The discussion so far is focused on the Australian Information Security Evaluation Program (AISEP). One topic of interest to me is that the Australian Signals Directorate is looking at training for security certifiers with other countries. Some of my uni students have been interns at companies carrying out government security checks.

The panel has:

Dr Hin Chan, Manager – Australian Certification Authority (ACA), Australian Cyber Security Centre, ASD

Erin Glenn, Director of Product Management, Belkin International, US

Patrick Campbell-Dunn, Securus Consulting Group 

Folding LED Screens for Temporary Classrooms

Greetings from Tech in Government 2024 in Canberra. The most interesting product on the exhibition floor is a folding LED screen on wheels being demonstrated by Mark Lazare from Viewsonic. This is designed to fit through an ordinary doorway and then he unfolded. The joins don't show at all when unfolded.

Welcome to the Next War: the AI Triple Black Box and Accountability

Professor Ashley Deeks

Greeting from "The Double Black Box: National Security, Artificial Intelligence, and the Struggle for Democratic Accountability" by Professor Ashley Deeks, University of Virginia. This is a public part of the conference "Anticipating the Future of War: AI, Automated Systems, and Resort-to-Force Decision Making" hosted by the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University. Professor Deeks' thesis is that defence AI is a block box both because even the programmers don't know what it is doing and if they did it would be secret. I suggest the situation is not that bad: it is possible to build AI systems which can be asked why they made a decision. But as the recent Microsoft/Crowdstrike failure shows, even non-AI systems can do surprising things. There is also cause concern, as Professor Deeks pointed out, due to the scale of use.

At a practical level it is not that difficult to test if an AI weapon is at least as reliable as a human operator. This could improve procedures by making explicit the decision making processes. There will be pressure to use advanced automated systems, just as there are for current simple ones, such as mines. 

Professor Deeks is presenting a US-centric view of the issues. However, the US is not a leader in development of AI weapons. Any country with a university having a computing school has the capability to make advanced AI weapons. Recently I was assessing a university student project for a small autonomous vehicle. This was for civilian purposes, but one version was tracked, and just needed a weapon added to be a robot tank.

The problem, I suggest, could be far harder than Professor Deeks suggests. The magic sauce for an AI weapon is in the software. The physical weapon can be upgraded over the air to have new capabilities. Some of this has been seen with missiles, where air launched missiles have been adapted for surface launch & surface for air. An example is the US Navy's SM-6 ship missile adapted for air launch against surface, air and space targets. Deciding of something is an anti-satellite weapon or not is a matter of software. 

Professor Deeks mentioned her paper "The judicial demand for explainable artificial intelligence" (2019) which argued for lawyers to get AI savvy. Some are thinking tech, such as Herbert Smith Freehills.

Commenting on the Great Computer Outage of 2024

Stop Error on a Screen
at Coles Leichardt, 26 July 2024.
Photo by Tom Worthington CC-BY

My phone started ringing on Friday afternoon. First it was the SciMex Science Media Center in Adelaide: could I talk to the media on the computer outage? What computer outage? I had been driving interstate and hadn't noticed many shop, airline, and other systems were down. What I had noticed were that both ABC Radio Sydney, & ABC Radio National were off the air (more correctly  broadcasting  apology loops, indicating the transmitters were okay but programs were getting to them).

At this stage the indication was it wasn't a cyber attack, and was not at the network level (my mobile phone still worked). It was the operating system. So I made a general comment to go out from SciMex to the media. At this stage the ABC had a report suggesting it was from the Crowdstrike security software. 

My phone then starting ringing. Sky new wanted to interview me, but their Zoom and phone interview facilities were not working (due to the it outage?), and it was not feasible to get to the studio. I talked to ABC Radio Queensland, who said they had one microphone and a CD player working. A little known fact is that if all the fancy automation fails in an ABC studio, one microphone is connected to the transmitter for emergency broadcasts. At the end of the interview I asked them to play "A Walk in the Black Forest" (the only track Radio Goodies had), but the joke went flat. 

One 24 hour TV news network wanted me to come to their studio across town because they could not do a Zoom or phone interview (presumably because the equipment for that used Microsoft Windows). I was tempted to suggest they hold the phone up to the camera.

I made the right call to say it was not a cyber attack, & resisted the temptation to criticize Microsoft Windows. Something I found surprising was the range of devices apparently running Microsoft Windows. Why would you use it for an airline or supermarket machine, rather than an operating system designed for real time embedded applications (such as one of the Linux variants)? 

See also (updates):

• Can we avoid a repeat of Friday's CrowdStrike crash chaos?, By Allan Lee, Biwa Kwan, Presented by Allan Lee, SBS News, 22 July 2024 11:49 am.
• Hot Takes from the CrowdStrike Global Tech Outage, Professor Johanna Weaver, Director Tech Policy Design Centre, Australian National University